A target drone is an

unmanned aerial vehicle An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or unmanned aircraft system (UAS), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft with no human pilot, crew, or passengers onboard, but rather is controlled remotely or is autonomous.De Gruyter Handbook of Dron ...

, generally remote controlled, usually used in the training of anti-aircraft crews. One of the earliest drones was the British DH.82 Queen Bee, a variant of the Tiger Moth trainer aircraft operational from 1935. Its name led to the present term "drone". In their simplest form, target drones often resemble radio-controlled model aircraft. More modern drones may use countermeasures,

radar Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...

, and similar systems to mimic manned aircraft. More advanced drones are made from large, older missiles which have had their warheads removed. In the United Kingdom, obsolete

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

and

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

jet and propeller-powered aircraft (such as the Fairey Firefly, Gloster Meteor and de Havilland Sea Vixen used at RAE Llanbedr between the 1950s and 1990s) have also been modified into remote-controlled drones, but such modifications are costly. With a much larger budget, the U.S. military has been more likely to convert retired aircraft or older versions of still serving aircraft (e.g., QF-4 Phantom II and QF-16 Fighting Falcon) into remotely piloted targets for US Air Force,

US Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

and US Marine Corps use as Full-Scale Aerial Targets.

List of target drones

Purpose built

* Aerial Target * Airspeed Queen Wasp * AQM-127 SLAT * Aviolanda AT-21 * de Havilland Queen Bee * DRDO Abhyas * DRDO Fluffy * DRDO Lakshya * DRDO Ulka * Denel Dynamics Skua * Meggitt Banshee * Aisheng Drone-2 * GAF Jindivik * GAF Turana * HESA Karrar * Mirach 100/5 * MQM-170 * TAI Şimşek * TAI Turna * Lockheed AQM-60 Kingfisher * QinetiQ Banshee * BQM-34 Firebee * BQM-74 Chukar * BQM-167 Skeeter * Kratos BQM-177 * Kratos MQM-178 Firejet * NAI CK-1 * Nord CT41 * Karrar (UCAV) * NCSIST Spark

Conversions

* Curtiss Queen Seamew * Douglas BT-2BR and BT-2BG * de Havilland Vampire * Fairey Queen * Firefly U.Mk 8 and U.Mk 9 * Meteor U.15, 16, and 21 * MiG-15V * Mil Mi-4UM * Miles Queen Martinet * F4U-4K Corsair * F6F-5K Hellcat * Ilyushin Il-28M * PQ-8 Cadet * PQ-13 Ercoupe * PQ-14 Cadet * QAH-1S Cobra * QP-4B Privateer * QB-17 Flying Fortress * QT-33 Shooting Star * QB-47 Stratojet * QF-80 Shooting Star * QF-86 Sabre * QF-100 Super Sabre * QF-102 and PQM-102 Delta Dagger * QF-104 and UF-104J Starfighter * QF-106 Delta Dart * QF-4 Phantom II * QF-16 Fighting Falcon * QF-9 Cougar

References

External links

RIM-2 Terrier SAM intercepts a F6F target drone
{{DEFAULTSORT:Target Drone Targeting (warfare)